Are you ready for Hurricane Season? Do you have a plan? For End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) patients, these questions are particularly important. In order to ensure that dialysis providers and community stakeholders are planning for the unique needs of dialysis patients, the Florida Kidney Disaster Coalition is planning collaborative disaster preparedness meetings in Duval and Orange counties (dates to be announced).
These meetings will be attended by dialysis providers, emergency management officials and other community stakeholders involved in disaster preparedness and response. As with Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, we expect these meetings to create a learning environment for all those who attend, open lines of communication between providers and emergency management officials, and identify gaps in current disaster preparedness plans. Are you a provider in Orange or Duval county?
Contact the FKDC if you would like more information, would like to be involved in the planning, or would like to attend the meeting, please email FKDC at fkdc@nw7.esrd.net
Have you thought about pandemic prepardness? Or did the bird flu fly right out of your mind when the news coverage ended? Pandemic preparedness is especially critical for dialysis patients. As of now, the key responses for an outbreak of avian flu include: isolate, quarantine, stay home.... not very realistic for ESRD patients. Dialysis patients cannot "just stay home."
“The conversation about individual preparedness for pandemic flu must extend nationwide through all possible channels, including social media and the Internet,” HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said recently.
Additionally, anyone concerned about pandemic flu is encouraged to be more involved. There are several pandemic preparedness meetings happening in Florida. The Florida Hospital Association, in conjunction with the American Red Cross®, Roche, and the University of Florida School of Public Health, has designed a workshop that brings together hospital stakeholders from across the state to discuss the challenging issues of planning for an influenza pandemic. This State of Florida Working Session on Healthcare Pandemic Planning will be held on Thursday, June 28, 2007 at the Emergency Operations Center in Winter Park, Florida. The Hernando County Health Department will also be holding a Pandemic Flu exercise on June 28.
For more information, please visit http://www.dstftraining.net/uploads/Hernando_Pan_Flu_Ex.pdfIf you want more information on pandemic preparedness, check out this website:http://www.pandemictoolkit.com/
